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Page 56
"But, Mary, admitting as you do, that you believe there exist
many truly conscientious members of this sect, why indulge your
apprehension at the promulgation of its tenets?" replied Florence.
"I might answer you, Florry, in the words of Henry IV., who inquired
of a celebrated Protestant divine, 'if a man might be saved by the
Roman Catholic religion?' 'Undoubtedly,' replied the clergyman, 'if
his life and heart be holy.' 'Then,' said the king, 'according to both
Catholics and Protestants, I may be saved by the Catholic religion;
but if I embrace your religion, I shall not be saved according to the
Catholics.' Thus Henry most unquestionably adjudged Protestants the
more tolerant of the two sects. Here, Florry, you have the clew to
my anti-Romanism. I fear the extension of papal doctrines, because
liberty of conscience was never yet allowed where sufficient power was
vested in the Roman Catholic clergy to compel submission. To preserve
the balance of power in ecclesiastical affairs is the only aim of
Protestants. We but contend for the privilege of placing the Bible in
the hands of the masses--of flashing the glorious flambeau of truth
into the dark recesses of ignorance and superstition--into the abysmal
depths of papal iniquity. Unscrupulously employing every method
conducive to the grand end of disseminating Romish dogmas, the
fagot, the wheel, and all the secret horrors of the Inquisition, were
speedily brought to bear upon all who dared to assume the privilege of
worshiping God according to the dictates of an unfettered conscience.
If the bloody tragedies of the Middle Ages are no longer enacted upon
the theater of a more enlightened world, it is because the power so
awfully abused has been wrested from the scarlet-robed tenants of the
Vatican, The same fierce, intolerable tyranny is still exercised where
their jurisdiction is unquestioned. From the administration of the
pontifical states of Italy to the regulation of convent discipline, we
trace the workings of the same iron rule. No barriers are too mighty
to be overborne, no distinctions too delicate to to be thrust rudely
aside. Even the sweet sacredness of the home circle is not exempt from
the crushing, withering influence. Ah! how many fair young members of
the household band have been decoyed from the hearthstone and immured
in gloomy cells. Ah! how many a widowed parent has mourned over the
wreck of all that was beautiful in a cherished daughter, snatched by
the hand of bigotry from her warm embrace, and forever incarcerated
in monastic gloom. Oh! tell me, Florry, if compulsory service is
acceptable to all-seeing God? If the warm young heart, beating behind
many a convent grate, yearns to burst asunder the iron bands which
enthrall her, and, mingling again upon the stage of life to perform
the duties for which she was created, oh! where in holy writ is
sanction found for the tyrannical decree which binds her there
forever--a living sacrifice?"
CHAPTER XXI.
"'Tis the light that tells the dawning
Of the bright millennial day,
Heralding its blessed morning,
With its peace-restoring ray.
* * * * *
"Man no more shall seek dominion
Through a sea of human gore;
War shall spread its gloomy pinion
O'er the peaceful earth no more."
BURLEIGH.
It was a dark, tempestuous night in December, and the keen piercing
blasts whistled around the corners and swept moaningly across the
Plaza. Silence reigned over the town. No sound of life was heard--the
shout of laughter, the shriek of pain, or wail of grief was stilled.
The voices of many who had ofttimes hurried along the now silent and
deserted streets were hushed in death. The eventful day had dawned
and set, the records of its deeds borne on to God by the many that
had fallen. Oh! when shall the millennium come? When shall peace and
good-will reign throughout the world? When shall hatred, revenge,
and malice die? When shall the fierce, bitter strife of man with
fellow-man be ended? And oh! when shall desolating war forever cease,
and the bloody records of the past be viewed as monster distortions of
a maddened brain? These things shall be when the polity of the world
is changed. When statesmen cease their political, and prelates their
ecclesiastical intrigues; when monarch, and noble, and peasant, alike
cast selfishness and dissimulation far from them; when the Bible is
the text-book of the world, and the golden rule observed from pole to
pole.
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